1

Alba Vicario
English Literature 1650-2000
British English
10 June 2014
1467 words
The Pursuit of Identity in Virginia Woolfs Mrs Dalloway
In the 20th century, Modernism develops after a period of social, political and economic
upheavals. A more individualistic perspective was born after World War; whereas the
reality and the objective facts are put aside. Some writers of this period, as Virginia Woolf,
are focused on "stream of consciousness". Thus, the depth of each character is particularly
reflected, so that their feelings and thoughts are shown at all times how they are changing
according to the situation in which the characters are. (Bouzid, 2013:4) Furthermore,
Darwinian theories based on denying that man descended from God, but from ape
evolutioninfluence the need to know which function the human being assumes in the
world. (Greenberg, 2009:426 )
Bouzid states that Virginia Woolf, as a modern and feminist writer, deals with the
study of the individuals consciousness using the stream of consciousness technique.
(2013:12). This technique appears in her book Mrs Dalloway published in 1925. The author
focuses on Mrs Dalloways characters inner life through their youth memories and their
thoughts. This technique is so interesting because Woolfs analysis encompasses each
characters thought and feeling in a continuous way, moving from one character to another.
Moreover, she does not focus on the outer side, but on the inner life of each character.
(Bouzid, 2013:2). The adoption of the internal monologue takes a very important role in
Woolf's work because it is the mean which the characters question their identity. The sense
of identity is essential in the era of Modernism because, like the existentialist stream does,

individuals look for their own identity, the importance of being in the world and the
function that they comply in it.
Mrs Dalloway is written after a war period, where English people seek their identity
in a vanished past where everything has been destroyed because of the war. However, in
Mrs Dalloway the search of identity makes the reader question theirs. The course of time
and the constant change make reader wonder whether someone can be lack of something in
their identity when they have ever in the past; or even though a particular virtue or defect
has never been attached to their identity, it is essential reason for what they are now?
Mrs Dalloway is set in London in a day of June of 1923. In spite of difficulty to
know the characters circumstances (because of the fact that the story takes place in one
day), Woolf delves into them using introspection, i.e., entering into the deepest of his
consciousness. Additionally, there is an impersonal narrator who is very close to the
character, so he shows characters thoughts, actions and perceptions. Similar to human
mind which flows from the conscious to the unconscious, fantasy to reality and past
memories to the present the narrator mixes dreams with the reality and past with present,
for this purpose, the narrator introduces the Clarissas memories through flashbacks.
Clarissa Dalloways memories are positive for her because she finds her identity in
her youth. However, after some years, she questions what she was and what she has
become. That is why; she remembers her past to find their identity in the present. Her voice
always speaks unconsciously inside her, surfacing her wishes, desires and fantasies.
Nevertheless, she questions her surroundings because craves the energy of youth, freedom
of a single life and the chance of choosing Peter Walsh as her partner:
The final scene, the terrible scene which he believed had mattered
more than anything in the whole of his life [] Sally at lunch

saying something about Dalloway, and calling him `My name is

Dalloway; whereupon Clarissa suddenly stiffened, coloured, in a
way she had, an rapped out sharply, `Weve had enough of that
feeble joke. That was all [] `Clarissa! he cried. `Clarissa! But
she never came back. It was over. He went away that night. He
never saw her again. (Woolf, 2008:54-55)
Clarissa's life is a quiet calm, with concerns such as: throwing a party or buying
roses. However, she feels empty with an emotional deficiency or an unfulfilled dream.
Virginia Woolf portrays life as unavoidable circumstances in a row over time in which
people have to choose. Each decision led life in one or another way, which not only does it
change life but the identity. In other words, new circumstances do not change the identity
but they broad the aspects of it. Thus, Clarissa Dalloway seeks meaning to her existence,
she nostalgically remembers the happiest moments of the past: She and Sally fell a little
behind. Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with
flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. (Woolf, 2008:30)
Likewise, she also has in her mind all she has never been because of a fate which
she cannot escape from. Virginia Woolf shows that life is made of fleeting but precious
moments. For example, Clarissa feels pleasure when she remembers Sally Seton, her friend
of youth and first love experience. Clarissa values a pure love full of passion, and that
makes Clarisse consider marriage as a horrible experience because her marriage drags her
to be another wife more in the society. Her identity is under the name of her husband: Mr.
Dalloway, a business gentleman. Hence, she feels sorry for not having another life with
Peter: Yet how much she owed Peter Walsh later. Always when she thought of him she

thought of their quarrels for some reason because she wanted his good opinion so much,
perhaps. She owed him words: `sentimental (Woolf, 2008:31)
From an existentialist perspective, Mrs Dalloway reflects how the characters
question their identity and their role within society. Nevertheless, Virginia Woolf works
with the technique of the interior monologue especially from the feminine sensibility. On
the one hand, Existentialism places the individual in the present, which must live with
resignation, but it does not emphasize much on the experiences of the past or the future. On
the other hand, the internal monologue takes life as an embodiment to be traced from the
past and it has a close relationship with the yearnings. The interior monologue assumes
personal and emotional relationships as an inevitable space in which the individual is
placed and where identity is forged, and that from these circumstances their feelings and
longings are possible.
In the same vein, Virginia Woolf, as feminist writer, makes a contribution on the
oppression of marriage. Jane Goldman asserts that by the time the woman neglects her
name (part of her identity) to take her husbands name the woman is subjected to marriage
oppression. (2008:53). Virginia Woolf shows how the roles are established in the story:
while man makes decisions and works out of the house to give dignity and support their
families; wife should remain at home, doing housework and take care of children. In the
case of Clarissa, she has nothing else to do that preparing parties, while she waits her
husband arrives home. Clarissa Dalloway discovers in her married name `Dalloway the
signal of submission; and therefore, the affirmation of her tragedy. Marriage identity has
been alienating Clarisse, and it forces her to see things from the Mr. Dalloway perspective,
i.e., from an aristocratic and bourgeois vision. Clarissa hides her sensitivities and her youth
dreams; that is why, she lives in constantly nostalgia.

In addition, there are situations that break identity completely, as in the case of
Septimus: For Gods sake dont come! Septimus cried out. For he could not look upon
the dead. But the branches parted. A man in grey was actually walking towards them. It
was Evans! But no wounds; he was no changed. (Woolf, 2008:59) Reinsertion after the
war is hard, so that society rejects and his only way out is suicide.
Clarissa's party is the climax of the story because she meets with her old friends:
Sally and Peter. She realizes that even though they are together as in her memory, the
circumstances are different, so she realizes how quickly life goes. Finally, the news about
Septimus death also makes her reflect about the sense of human being in the world.
Virginia Woolf reflects that after the World War, the English population felt empty
because of the death of a lot of people and the loss of national identity, which make people
star questioning their own identity. (Bouzid, 2013:4). Modernism brings interior
monologue to Woolf's Mrs Dalloway in order to analyse the individual consciousness.
Thus, the events do not matter as much as the characters inner world: their memories,
regrets, fantasies and hopes, which constitute their identity. In Mrs Dalloway, the character
of Clarissa identifies constantly in her youth when she is young and free of marriage, in
other words, she identifies with the happiest time of her life and she still had the chance of
choose her future. In the party, which is the climax in Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
explains through the character of Clarissa that man has to assume his existence, to live his
life because there is only one life. She realizes through the loss of the youth virtues.
Septimus suicide is a turning point to Clarissa to understand that eternity does not exist and
sometimes, all may be hopeless. However, man can only understand himself as a subject by
living and doing examinations of conscience.

Finally, Clarissa ponders Septimus' death. Even though he dies, life goes on in the
rest of peoples life. So, she doubts the importance or function she has in the world. Woolf
finds a deeper meaning to human being existence, appealing to rigorous internal tests,
which require mindedness and sincerity. An individual needs to look at themselves as if
they were in front of a mirror, pointing out their flaws and qualities to face the world and to
face that anguish produced by the fact that they are in the world for no apparent reason.
There is not always reasons found to be in this world, but human being has the privilege of
being the protagonist in their own mind, so that they can find through reflection their
identity and their happiness.

References
Bouzik, Soumia. 2013. The Use of Stream of Consciousness in Virginia Woolfs Mrs.
Dalloway. Ouargla: Kasdi Merbah University.
Greenberg, Jonathan. 2009.

Introduction: Darwin and Literary Studies. Twentieth-

Century Literature 55.4: 423-444.

Goldman, Jane. 2008. The Cambridge Introduction to Virginia Woolf. Cambridge
University Press
Woolf, Virginia. 2008. Mrs Dalloway. New York: Oxford University Press